Music & HymnsAll Beautiful The March Of Days

"He spreads the snow like wool and scatters the frost like ashes." Psalm 147:16

Words: Frances Whitmarsh Wile, 1912. She wrote this hymn at the request of her friend, Dr. William Channing Gannett, who was helping compile a hymnal and wanted a winter hymn.

Frances Wile (1878-1939) was born in Bristol Valley, New York. She later lived in Rochester, New York, where she helped found the Women's City Club.

Music: "Forest Green," traditional English melody; arranged by Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1906

All beautiful the march of days, as seasons come and go;
The Hand that shaped the rose hath wrought the crystal of the snow;
Hath sent the hoary frost of heaven, the flowing waters sealed,
And laid a silent loveliness on hill and wood and field.

O'er white expanses sparkling pure the radiant morns unfold;
The solemn splendors of the night burn brighter than the cold;
Life mounts in every throbbing vein, love deepens round the hearth,
And clearer sounds the angel hymn, "Good will to men on earth."

O Thou from Whose unfathomed law the year in beauty flows,
Thyself the vision passing by in crystal and in rose,
Day unto day doth utter speech, and night to night proclaim,
In ever changing words of light, the wonder of Thy Name.

Hymns supplied through the gracious generosity of the Cyber Hymnal Website